


right where we are

by orphan_account



Series: a mirror of worlds [1]
Category: The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Idiots in Love, Matt Murdock Is a Flirt, Oblivious Jessica Jones, Other, Polyamory, Trish Walker is Better Than You, gelato
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 08:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13407108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The two people she's most able to tolerate in the world probably belong together.So why isn't she happy?Or: the one where Matt and Trish are flirtatious, and Jessica is damn oblivious for a PI.





	right where we are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [livingvakariouslythroughyou (supercow585)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercow585/gifts).



> Content warnings: blasphemy; profanity; fluff; blind jokes; Jessica Jones being oblivious. Enjoy!

She looks up as Trish stalks in the door, her blonde hair curled around her shoulders, her makeup shimmering in the light, red lips bared in a snarl.

“ _Men_ ,” Trish growls, as she stalks over to the cupboard, taking out the bottle of tequila she keeps in there for really bad days. Jessica smirks, taking out her earphones.

“That good, huh?”

“Don’t even start, Jess,” Trish snaps.

Jessica shuts the laptop with a sigh. “What was it this time?” she asks, pivoting her legs so that there’s room on the couch for Trish. “Was he a fan?”

“Oh, only of himself,” Trish says, pouring a shot.

Jessica raises her eyebrows, as Trish comes to sit on the couch beside her.

“I get to the restaurant, and he’s not late, so I figure, hey, it’s gotta be better than last time. He makes some comment about how my lipstick is so...bright,” she says, affecting the pause and screwing up her expression in mock-disgust. “Bright, of course, being code for slutty. And then when the waiter comes over, he tries to _order my drink and food for me_.”

“Idiot,” Jessica scoffs, reaching for her flask and taking a swig.

“Right? And so when I’m like, ‘thanks, but I can order for myself, I’m not a child’, he _goddamn leers_ at me, and then once I order, he judges my order – ‘why do you want a salad, Trish, don’t tell me you’re one of those girls who counts calories’, like he gets to fucking _judge me for trying to take care of myself_. And he spends a solid twenty minutes talking about how this novel he’s writing is going to be such a revolutionary take on death and how strongly he was influenced by Emile Durkheim, which, cool story, bro, but for fuck’s sake, he hasn’t even asked me _one question_ about me or my day, or–just, how is anyone that self-absorbed?”

“It’s a talent,” Jessica deadpans, as Trish sighs, leaning into the arm of the couch a little more.

Trish moans. “I haven’t had a decent date in nine months, Jessica.” She twists. “Seriously, at this point, I’m close to just giving up entirely on guys.”

“What about the last girl you went out with?” Jessica asks.

“Another _It’s Patsy_ stan. The guys are all self-absorbed, and the girls all watched It’s Patsy as kids. Some of the guys did too, but not as many,” she sighs. “And the ones that did honestly tend to be creepy. Like, the worst of both worlds.”

“You don’t need to remind me,” Jessica says dryly. “Box the bald-headed bishop guy was proof enough of that.”

“Ugh,” Trish agrees, shuddering. “Seriously.”

Jessica tilts her head. “I mean, I can think of one guy we know who you might tolerate.”

“If it’s Nelson, he’s not single, and if it’s Malcolm, then he’s not my type,” Trish says, with a reluctant smile.

“Matt’s single,” Jessica says, as casually as she can. Push too hard, and Trish will worry.

Trish twists to look at her, her eyebrows shooting up. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Page and he decided that they were probably better as friends a while back,” Jessica says. “And you have to admit he’s hot.”

Trish snorts. “Well, yeah. My eyes do work,” she admits, leaning back on the couch. “You think?”

Jessica sighs. “Look, the guy’s got some baggage, but–”

“But so do I,” Trish finishes, her mouth quirking in a wry smile. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

Jessica smirks at her.

“ _West Wing_?”

“Oh my God, _please_ ,” Trish says, and Jessica chuckles as she loads the disc into Trish’s laptop.

Some things remain constant.

* * *

 

The next night, she’s on a fire escape photographing yet another cheating couple.

“You around, Daredevil?” she asks. She still thinks it’s a goddamn idiotic name, but she can’t blame him for wanting to keep his lives separate.

A few minutes later, there’s a thud on the fire escape, and there he is, black mask stretched across his nose. The new costume’s harder, more protective, and more black than it is red, including the cowl.

Still has those stupid devil horns, though.

“You called?” he growls.

“Yeah. How’s your love life going?” she asks, snapping another photo of the couple, where the woman appears to be wrapping her legs around her lover’s head. Well, that’s one way to go about it.

He sighs. “If I said ‘none of your damn business’, would you listen?”

He’s starting on the stairs, and she shrugs, taking another photo.

“Nope. Trish wants your number.”

He almost slips on the fire escape. He rights himself quickly, but she’s noticed, and huh. Murdock has balance that most cats would _weep_ for. For him to slip...well, well.

“Trish,” he repeats, turning to face her. His lips are parted a little, like he’s trying to wrap his brain and mouth around it at the same time. “As in, your friend Trish. _Trish Talk_ Trish.”

“Don’t get weird about it,” Jessica orders him, and his mouth snaps shut. “Yeah, that Trish. She wants your number.”

“...Daredevil’s, or…?”

“No, not Daredevil’s number. I’m trying to set you up, not give her an SOS,” Jessica sighs. She’s fucking terrible at this, she should have just given Trish his number. But then Matt would have likely freaked out, which would have destroyed her plan of setting up the most tolerable people she knew.

“Oh,” Matt says. “Right. Um. Go ahead and give it to her, I guess, then.”

“It didn’t change when you were, y’know, buried under a building?”

Matt shakes his head. “Foggy kept paying the bill.”

She whistles. “You’ve got one hell of a friend, Murdock.”

His smile is soft, almost wistful. “Yeah. Yeah, I do,” he says.

* * *

 

The phone call must go well, because Trish walks out of her room, smiling.

“So?” Jessica asks, raising an eyebrow. She wouldn’t care, but. Well. Trish.

Trish grins. “Seven o’clock, this Thursday, at a great Indian place he knows, he’ll meet me there. Rand has the Kitchen that night.”

“He gave you the name and address, right?”

“Uh-huh. The Spice Room, 464 West 51st,” Trish reads off the scrap of paper.

Jessica nods. “I know it. It’s nice, but not flashy.”

“So…” Trish says.

“If you’re asking me for what to wear, I’m going to remind you that he’s blind,” Jessica deadpans.

“If I dress down and he wears a suit, then I look like the asshole who thinks that her blind date isn’t worth making an effort for.”

“Heh. Blind date.”

“Oh, God, Jess.”

“Hey, wait till you hear his jokes.”

Trish pauses. “He jokes about it? His blindness?”

“So goddamn much,” Jessica confirms. “If there is even the passing chance for a blind joke, a blind joke will be made.”

Trish smiles. “He sounds ridiculous.”

“I can promise you he won’t be self-absorbed, though,” Jessica tells her, satisfied.

So far, so good.

* * *

 

Of course, there’s a little work to be done on the night itself. She knows both of them too well to think otherwise.

 _You both owe me a drink for this_ , she thinks to herself.

Matt first.

 **Jessica, 6:30pm:** Calm the hell down.

 **Matt, 6:30pm:** I’m completely calm.

 **Jessica, 6:31pm:** You wanna try that again with less bullshit, Counsellor?

 **Matt, 6:31pm:** Yeah, okay, that was a fool’s errand. Just. She’s Trish Walker. Why, exactly, would she want to go on a date with me?

 **Jessica, 6:31pm:** Making the case for that is your job, not mine, Matt. Be your usual charming self, and you’ll be fine.

 **Matt, 6:32pm:** You think I’m charming?

 **Jessica, 6:32pm** : I’m never talking to you again.

 **Matt, 6:33pm:** You say the sweetest things, Jones.

Yeah, he’ll be fine.

She takes another sip of her flask and continues playing Candy Crush on her phone.

The minutes tick by. Trish will have left a while in order to have enough time to find a parking spot, which means that she has time for quite a few more levels on this. Possibly even a cat video.

 **Jessica, 6:50pm:** Get out of the goddamn car. You’ll be fine, I promise.

 **Trish, 6:50pm:** How did you know? Were you following me?

Jessica rolls her eyes. As if after fifteen years of knowing Trish she actually needs to follow her to know what she’s doing.

 **Jessica, 6:50pm:** I’m not that creepy, Walker. You were due to start psyching yourself out.

She hesitates, fingers hovering over the keyboard. It feels strange to be telling someone this, but then, it’s Matt, and it’s Trish, and she really, really wants this to work for them.

 **Jessica, 6:50pm:** If it helps, I think he’s really excited and probably a bit nervous about meeting you too.

 **Jessica, 6:51pm:** Now get in there, and be yourself, and I promise, you’ll goddamn blow him away.

It’s Trish, after all. It’s what she _does_.

She can’t help but speculate some on how the night might be going. Murdock’s a charmer. Smooth, confident. But the fact that he has that little ol’ celebrity crush on Trish might send most of his charm out of the window. And Trish, well, normally she likes cocky and confident. Which Murdock’s got, except when he’s off-balance.

A text at 7:30 would mean Trish is bouncing and that the date was a shitshow.

She puts on an episode of _Gilmore Girls_. It’s significantly less fun without Trish there to mock for being overly invested in the relationships, and the forty minutes mostly pass with her asleep.

Her phone doesn’t vibrate once.

Another episode. A text at 8:30 would mean that it’s okay, but they’ve decided to probably not do it again.

8:30 passes without anything. She checks her watch, after the second episode finishes.

9:10. The date must be going very well.

At 9:45, she breaks. She can’t hold out without news any longer. Which is probably pathetic of her, and she is never going to tell anyone about this as long as she lives.

 **Jessica, 9:45pm** : So I’m assuming the fact that I’ve heard nothing yet is good news.

 **Matt, 10:03pm:** Good is the operative term, yes. Thank you, Jess.

That fucking _dork_.

Her phone buzzes again a minute later.

 **Jessica, 9:45pm:** So how’d it go?

 **Trish, 10:05pm:** You didn’t tell me he was trouble.

 **Jessica, 10:05pm:** ??? ARE YOU OKAY

 **Trish, 10:06pm:** He’s funny and smart and gorgeous

 **Trish, 10:06pm** : charming and considerate

 **Trish, 10:06pm:** AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME

Jessica smirks.

 **Jessica, 10:07pm:** Oh. That kind of trouble.

 **Trish, 10:07pm:** YES, JESSICA, THAT KIND OF TROUBLE.

 **Jessica, 10:08pm:** ;) You’re welcome.

* * *

 

A few months pass in cases and alcohol, only one skirmish where Doombots attack Manhattan, requiring an effort from the Defenders, and even a couple of times where Matt drops into alleys where she’s fighting either a) a particularly dissatisfied client or b) somebody who recognises her as powered and feels like taking their shit out on her. Which, seriously, fuck humanity.

Matt chuckles as he disinfects the cut over her eye, his fingers gentle. His cowl is off his face, sitting on her desk. He’d insisted on coming back to her place with her, figuring that she wouldn’t plan on treating any of the cuts, and she’d let him. It had felt...almost nice. It had felt insistent in the way Trish’s insistence on occasionally talking about feelings felt, or the way Malcolm’s insistence on helping with cases. It felt nice.

It helped her feel…

_Cared for._

The thought makes her blink, which is why she noticed the dark purple mark around Matt’s neck.

“Oh my God, is that what I think it is?”

She half-expects him to slap her hand away, but he doesn’t, letting her brush her fingers over the bruise, even as a blush races up around his neck.

“Dude, how are you even planning on hiding that for your day job?”

“I invested in some good foundation a while back,” he says, without batting an eyelash. The pink has continued to race up his neck, and now his cheeks are darkening under his stubble.

It’s goddamn adorable.

_...oh, no, she can’t have, no, no, no–_

She takes a deep breath. “Yeah? Tell me you’ve got some little brushes at home. With little devils on ‘em.”

“Fingers work just fine,” Matt says. His hand hovers over her face, like he’s not quite sure whether to keep reaching out and touching, and _nope_ , this is a goddamn terrible idea, she can’t do this, not to _Trish_ –

“You okay?” Matt asks.

“I’ll be fine,” she tells him. “Get back to your city, devil boy.”

Fuck, it used to just sound like banter, but now it sounds like _flirting_ , fuck, fuck, fuck–

Matt nods, grabbing the cowl and buckling it on again. “Call me if you need anything,” he says, before he jumps out the window.

Dramatic fucker.

She takes a deep breath, and a swig of her flask again.

Okay. So she’s got somewhat more than platonic feelings for her best friend’s boyfriend.

_...Fuck._

She grabs the Scotch bottle.

_How?_

Stupid question. He was cocky, charming, compassionate – a lot of words that began with ‘c’, now that she came to think of it, maybe it was a fucking conspiracy – as well as mixed up in all the shit that she’d had to run and hide from for a while. He could handle her snark, and more than return fire, and he wasn’t intimidated by her in the slightest.

_The fuck do I do about it?_

Better question, but one she had no answers to. She takes a long, long gulp of the Scotch.

Future Jessica can try her hand at solving this particular fucking conundrum.

In the cold, sober light of morning, with a killer hangover, she does manage to reach one conclusion.

The root cause of the issue is spending time with Matt. Solution: stop spending time with Matt.

Thankfully, she’s got a lot of practise at avoiding people.

* * *

 

Avoiding Trish, on the other hand, is harder, even if she feels a weird, squirmy feeling in her stomach whenever she looks into those green, green eyes.

“Is everything alright?” Trish asks, handing Jessica her coffee. It’d been her turn to get it.

“Yeah, why?” Jessica returns, taking a sip of it.

“You just seem kinda...distant,” Trish says. “Did something happen with a case?”

Jessica lets out a dramatic sigh. “Well, if you must know,” she begins. “I had a client who asked me to make sure that her husband wasn’t fucking the Hulk.”

Trish’s eyes go a little wide.

 _Bingo_.

“I’m sorry, come again?”

“I think that’s what she was worried about, yeah,” Jessica returns, and Trish chokes on the next swig of coffee. They continue with the discussion of the Hulk–

“She thought he was giving the footage ‘longing looks’?” Trish asks skeptically.

“Cross my heart, and hope to die,” Jessica promises her.

– and for a while, Jessica thinks she’s gotten away from it.

They’re almost at the studio, and Trish levels a Look at her. Her patented ‘Cut the bullshit, Jess’ Look.

“Matt says he hasn’t seen you around in a while,” she says.

Jessica scoffs, looking away, finding an interesting woman with a multicoloured wig to stare at across the street. “Yeah, well, he’s a big boy and can communicate all on his own.”

“Except for the part where you won’t answer his calls, or his texts, and you’re mysteriously out every time he swings by your place,” Trish says.

“Fuck, you two talk about me?”

“We talk about the things that bother us. And his friend avoiding him bothers him a lot,” Trish says, green eyes boring into hers. “And it bothers me, too.”

Jessica sighs. “Trish.”

“Jessica, talk to me. What happened?”

“Nothing, I just–” she bites her lip. What can she say that sounds believable, that doesn’t land Matt in trouble, that doesn’t force her to come clean about _‘oh, yeah, I like your boyfriend’?_ “I just wanted to give you two space,” she says, meeting Trish’s eyes.  It’s not a lie, it’s not a lie, it’s not a goddamn lie. “You seem happy.”

And that’s the kicker. Trish has been _glowing_. Every time her phone buzzes with a text from Matt, her face lights up.

She talks about him goddamn near incessantly, too, in a way that makes Jessica’s stomach prickle, because the stories Trish tells about the day include, in about this order:

  1. Ridiculous shit her bosses are pulling, and the efforts to turn Trish Talk into investigative reporting.
  2. Her weirdest listeners of the day.
  3. The latest shit going down in Manhattan, and what Matt thinks about it.
  4. Her ongoing efforts to get Matt to watch _Gilmore Girls_.
  5. Did she tell you about this really funny thing Matt said the other day?



  
  
  
And okay, yeah, Jessica might be exaggerating, here, but not by fucking much, is the point, and for some reason, it hurts to think about them together.

Trish’s smile is soft, and she takes Jessica’s hand in her free hand, and the touch _burns_.

“Of course I’m happy,” she says, voice soft, eyes locked with Jessica’s, and it’s getting hard to breathe, and Jessica can’t look away. “But I want you to be happy as well, Jessica. And if you’re not happy, then things aren’t right for me either.” Her hand comes up, tucking some of Jessica’s hair behind her ear, and Jessica can feel her cheeks warming. What the _fuck?!_   “Talk to him, okay?”

Jessica nods. “Okay,” she says, because saying no to Trish when she’s looking at her like that, when her hand is resting on Jessica’s shoulder and her thumb is swiping over the skin at her collar bared by her T-shirt is goddamn impossible and she’s surprised she hasn’t stood on her tongue. “Okay.”

Trish smiles. “Okay.” There’s almost a moment, where she seems to be waiting for something.

Jessica nods, shoves her free hand in her pocket, and lifts the coffee cup a little. “Thanks.”

There’s something in Trish’s eyes she can’t quite identify.

“Anytime,” Trish says, before she turns and walks into the studio.

Jessica waits for a second and then drinks from her flask instead of the coffee mug.

Okay. So she’s in love with not only her best friend’s boyfriend, but said best friend.

_Fuckers._

“The fuckers,” she says aloud. “The idealistic, romantic _fuckers_.”

“Excuse me?” someone says. An offended-looking businessman in his sixties.

“You heard me, asshole,” she snaps, before she stalks down the street.

Great. Now she has to avoid _two_ people.

* * *

 

Four days later, she gets into her office at midnight, only to see Trish sitting at her desk.

“You should know by now this doesn’t work,” Trish says.

Jessica breathes deeply. “ _Jesus fucking Christ_ , Trish, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Don’t come down from that adrenaline high just yet, I’m not alone,” she says.

_What?_

A cough from the left draws her attention, and of _fucking course_ , there’s Matt, still in shiny lawyer garb.

“Hi, Jess,” he says.

“Jesus,” she says again, taking a long gulp of whiskey. “Okay, fine, what is it?”

“Aside from the fact that we’re worried as shit about you? Nothing much,” Matt says, brightly, his smile hard and flinty, nothing like his normal sunshine grin. It drops away, almost instantly, one hand coming up to rest on his hip. “You and I haven’t spoken for a _month_.”

“And I’m doing fine, I’m still alive, still drinking, still working cases, what the fuck do you care?”

He gapes at her. “Why the fuck wouldn’t I care?” he says, and his voice is trembling. “Why _wouldn’t I care_ that one of my closest friends stopped talking to me with no explanation or conversation as to why, stopped calling, stopped returning my calls or texts, and just seemingly _checked the fuck out of my life_ with no explanation?” He’s shaking. “If I did something, then why can’t you just _tell me_?”

“Matt,” Trish says softly, “I’m pretty sure this isn’t an us-problem.”

“Right, it’s a Jessica problem,” Jessica cuts in. “And that’s something Jessica gets to goddamn handle.”

Trish barely winces at the tactical error, instead, saying smoothly, “And it’s something we should all talk about.” Her eyes are angry and pained, but also steady. “Because I get an explanation as to why you’ve checked out of my life, too.”

Jessica stares at the ceiling for a long moment.

She’s hurt them. Fuck, the exact thing she was trying to avoid, and she’s _hurt them_.

 _Second verse, same as first_.

She sighs.

“I love you,” she says, locking eyes with Trish, whose eyes widen, and widen to the size of dinner plates, and then Jessica pivots to face Matt, “and I love you, and both of you love each other, and I didn’t sign on to be a fucking third wheel, and unrequited things suck, but they suck less at a distance, okay? That’s why I checked the hell out.”

And Matt’s slowly taking off his glasses, pocketing them, crossing the space until he’s right next to her.

“Jessica,” his voice is soft, so _soft_ , low and almost tender, and _Jesus, fuck_ , she’s not going to cry, she’s _not going to goddamn cry–_

His hand comes up to cup her left cheek, and Trish is walking over to them, too, slowly, like she doesn’t want to disturb the moment, but that’s wrong, too.

“Why would you ever think it was unrequited?” Trish asks, her hand coming up to cup Jessica’s right cheek, and at both warm hands on her skin, Jessica _breaks_ , because her brain can’t really process that, the idea that it’s reciprocal, and _fuck_ , she’s missed these goddamn idiots.

The tears slip down her face, but Matt’s lips are on hers as his thumbs wipe them away, and Trish is at her back, burying her face in Jessica’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around Jessica’s waist, and murmuring, ‘it’s okay’ into Jessica’s shoulder-blade, over and over again, her voice sweet and soothing.

Jessica lets one hand slip down to cover Trish’s, and cups the back of Matt’s neck with the other to kiss him back.

Her brain’s going to have to catch up.


End file.
